


The Lion and the Evenstar

by emperoxgrayland



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2020-03-17 19:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18971137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emperoxgrayland/pseuds/emperoxgrayland
Summary: The story of how Jaime Lannister's life changed when he met Brienne of Tarth not as an imprisoned Kingslayer but as an eleven year old lordling, dreaming to be a knight. A story of sword fights and falling in love in the moors of Casterly Rock, and knowing ultimately what honor compels us to do.





	1. Chapter 1

She was here. 

Brienne the Beauty they called her. 

Why she had to come to his rock he knew very well. 

Mother knows of him and Cersei. 

And she thinks she can change her mind by giving him a girl. But there was no one like Cersei. No one more fair, no one more beautiful, no one more like him. 

He was touched by the Warrior and she of the Maiden, everyone knew. And he knew it too. They were always meant to be. 

He waited on the docks because he wanted to be sure, wanted to show his mother see, you cannot sway me, my heart belongs to Cersei. 

And soon enough it comes, with it’s sails of crescent moons and suns. Tarth. 

His maester says her island was called the Sapphire Isle, because the waters were as blue as that of Sapphires. 

His mother has a Sapphire necklace, and he’d always like the way the light plays with the deep blues of it. He supposes it would be nice. 

The seas in Casterly Rock were not blue, they were more of a pale green. He would like to ask her what it was like to have seas so blue, and if the light sparkles in them like the way it sparkles in his mother’s necklace. Just that. He just wanted to know, and he shall never speak to this new girl ever again. 

Soon enough they lower the sails, and lower the gang plank and one by one they alight, foot soldiers and ship men carrying the crest of Tarth, and then a huge lumbering man, taller than his father, armored in rose gold and the blue that his house was known for, and beside him holding tightly to his hand was a girl - though no one would accuse her of being little. 

He knew she was younger than he, a girl of six to his eleven, but she was almost his size. She bore no beauty in her face, not like Cersei, she had a huge nose, and too thick lips and freckles peppered her skin, and her blonde hair lay limp and lank around a too wide face. 

Her bones too big for someone so young. 

And maybe she could feel him watching her, and her eyes veered swiftly to him, and her eyes met his and even across this distance, even across this space, he saw the blue of sapphires in her eyes, and believed that there were no waters more magnificent than the Sapphire Isle. 

—

She expected no one to want to befriend her. Her septa has said it, she had a face only a mother could love and her mother was dead. 

That’s why Father left her hear, with a Lannister of the Rock instead of at Storm’s End because the Baratheon’s were all boys, and had no mother, and here was Lady Joanna and Lady Cersei, and her father was good friends with Lord Tywin. 

But she hated Lady Cersei, the way her pretty face turned ugly and foul when she created a very ugly embroidery, the way she would pinch at her and poke her with her needles. 

If this is what it meant to be a lady she did not like it one bit. 

She loved Lady Joanna, however. She loved that she let her play with the baby in her belly, and she smelled of lavender and she tucked her into sleep. 

But t’was not a lady she wanted to be. She wanted to be a knight, like Ser Duncan, who everyone says she had the look of and it was just her misfortune to have been born a woman instead of a man, otherwise she’d be better than Jaime Lannister in sword. 

So one day, she escaped the Septa, and went to the training grounds where he was, golden and gleaming. 

He never spoke to her, not during dinner, not during the shared lessons. The only time he ever looked at her was when she first arrived and he was on the docks. As pretty as the Warrior in her picture book. With his gleaming golden hair and his eyes that showed his every emotion, his eyes that were the color of the sea in the Rock. 

He moved well, and fluidly with a sword as if he and the blade were one and the same. He was better than Galladon was. And much faster. 

And when he disarmed his opponent and no one stepped forward to challenge him, she marched toward the ground and picked up the sword that he had disarmed. 

“I challenge you.”

Her voice was loud and clear and it betrayed the fear she felt inside. She only tried sword fighting once, with a stable boy back in Tarth, after Galladon died and before her father shipped her off to be a lady. 

Jaime took one look at her grubby face, her dirty dress that she tore while climbing down the tower. 

“How did you get here you little wench?”

“I have a name, and my name is Brienne. I escaped my Septa and climbed down a tower.”

Jaime’s brows furrowed. The ladies’ study was at the highest point of the tower. 

“Are you mad, you could have hurt yourself.”

Despite himself his mother raised him as a lord and knight and honor compelled him to check his little guest for injuries. 

“I’m fine.” She pushed him away, though five years younger, she had strength in her arms. 

“I want to fight.”

He sneered at her and the lads around him snickered as well. His sword master was engaged in a talk with his father, and he looked around and made sure they were otherwise occupied. 

This would be a chance to tease the little chit. 

“Go on then, pick up the sword.”

She lifted it up and he eyed her stance, she had the basics of it right, clearly she had been watching. 

He circled around her but she kept her eyes on him, tracking his move. 

He expected to disarm her and push her with one move but he was pleasantly surprised when her arm raised up to parry his attack, the tourney swords clanging loudly. 

She had strength in her, but she looked the kind to have it. 

He stepped back and twisted his sword, securing a firmer grip on it. He lunged and she blocked and spun to attack. 

If he wasn’t bigger she would have slashed him down the belly. 

His eyes narrowed. She knows how to fight. 

Testing her he increased the speed on his attacks, and she blocked them all successfully. 

She wasn’t a good attacker, she wasn’t quite as fast as he was, but she had strength and stamina. 

He parried away her lunge and pointed his sword at her neck, only to feel the edge of hers against his gut.

“Yield.”

He said. And she merely grinned. Her cheeks were flush from battle, her wispy hair escaped from it’s braid and her eyes danced in the sunlight.

“You may take my head off, but you will have a more miserable death. T’is you who should yield.”

“I-”

“Jaime!”

His frantic mother’s voice came from the top of the rise where the meelee ground was concealed from, her skirts bundled in her hands as she rushed down to him.

“Jaime what have you done! Brienne, sweetheart, are your hurt?”

The smile vanished from her face and she looked down at her shoes. 

“Why did you climb down that tower Brienne?”

His mother checked her for wounds, lifting her skirts to look at her knees and he looks away, flushing, to the roots of his hair. In his engrossment in their fight, he did not notice that she hitched her dress up to free her legs for movement. 

“What is going on in here?”

Tywin came out with the sword master and took a look at Joanna frantically checking over every inch of Brienne, noted the sword in her hand, the disarray in her hair and turned steely eyes to his son. 

“Explain.”

“She’s good father.”

Brienne lifted her face from her feet and looked up at Jaime. 

“She’s really good. Better than half the men in this court.”

There where whispers and jeers but he ignored it. 

“She’s good. She’ll show you. Won’t you little we- Lady Brienne.”

He caught himself before his mother twisted his ears and saying nothing she nodded, and raised her sword again. 

“Tywin but this is absurd! She’s only six-”

“I can fight m’lady. My brother… my late brother taught me how.”

“Step aside Joanna.”

Tywin kept steel eyes as he watched his son duel the heir of Tarth, and satisfied at what he saw, halted the meelee. 

“My lady, your father has sent you here to learn the ways of court. Of how to be a lady. Your septa however tells me you will never be one.”

She frowns again, and tears pool in her eyes and Jaime steps in front of her, his hands tightening on his tourney sword. “Father-”

“Your Lord Father intends for you to inherit Tarth. If that is so, you will not need be a lady. You need to be a warrior. Master Bracken, fit the Lady of Tarth with her armors and leathers. She will begin her training tomorrow, as the sparring partner of the Heir of Casterly Rock.”

“Tywin! She’s only a girl. Just a girl.”

Joanna hugged Brienne close, and she felt warm and comforted.

“She is not just a girl. She will be Evenstar of Tarth, and that is no small duty. Jaime, lend Lady Brienne some of your clothes. She will find it easier to move in them. However, you will continue to learn the ways of court, and learn from Lady Joanna, and your Septa. It is what your father would have wanted.”

Tywin bows and walks away from them, and Joanna follows him in haste. 

He feels a hand enclose around his, and her hand was rough but warm. 

“Thank you.”

Her big blue eyes looked up at him in wonder and adoration and he finds himself smiling back and squeezing her hand. 

“Come along little wench, let’s get you in breeches.”

Her brow furrows and what do you know she can be quite adorable. 

“My name is Brienne.”

“Very well. Lady Brienne. Let’s get you some clothes.”


	2. Chapter 2

He kept the basket tied to his waist as he scaled the windows up to her room. 

She had a late start today, waking up late in the morning and so rushed to the training hall when all of them already warmed up and was gearing up to spar. 

And because she was the ward of the Lord of the Rock, she was placed in the same strict regimen he was. 

If you are late you are given no supper, and you must practice your parries for the entire day. 

The first time that happened to him, he was a boy of eight, and he and Cersei were playing that game, the one with the stallion and the mare, and he was late to come to his lesson. 

He was sent up to the tower with no supper, and aching arms from having lifted and parried the entire day. 

He’s sure it’s even worse for Brienne.

She was feeling poorly, and had a bad head cold. But Tywin Lannister let no simple sickness deter him - not even if his lady wife tried to beg for Brienne. 

“She is an heir, and she will rule her island one day. Sickness is not an excuse.” 

He’s heard it said for him so many times, and he and Brienne had developed a sort of friendship now. She was in many ways his responsibility. 

“Brienne?”

He whispered as he teetered precariously on the ledge of her tower.

Her chamber was dark, but her windows were open, to bring in the sound of the sea.

He climbed onto it, cursing as the basket hit the wall and threatened to spill precious content. 

“Little wench?”

She was huddled against the bed, fast asleep. 

From the moonlight he can see the tracks that tears ran across her cheek. 

And softening for she was but a child, almost like Tyrion, a wee babe in her sleep, he crouched in front of her and cupped a hand around her mouth. 

She woke with a start hands reaching at her sides for a sword that was not there - instincts, he thought. She had good instincts. 

“It’s me.”

“Jaime?”

“SHHH!” 

He motioned her to quiet and watched the door, hoping the guard placed there did not wake. 

“I brought you food - it’s chicken pie, your favorite.”

He snuck it away from dinner, and tucked it into his jerkin when he purposefully elbowed Tyrion’s glass of milk causing it to spill. Cersei saw him do it, and she raised a sculpted brow but did not tell their Father. 

Tears welled in her eyes again and he panicked for a while, not really knowing what to do, and so he did that thing his mother did for him when he was sad and teary. 

He awkwardly reached his arm around her broad back and tugged her to him, so her cheek rested against him and he awkwardly patted her back. 

“There, there. I know it must have been scary and lonely for you here.”

“I want to go home.”

For a second he wondered what she meant and then it hit him, she meant Evenfall Hall. A thousand leagues away from him, a fortnite’s sail away. A whole world away. 

His grip tightens around her, reluctant to let his little wench go. 

“You are home, Brie.”

“No. Father would never send me up here on my own. I miss my home, I miss my sea. I want to go home.”

“When I first was sent up here, I was eight-”

He prattled on and on about his delay, not realizing he was sharing his darkest secret with a mere girl of six. 

That he and his sister were more than that.

But she listened, and she quieted.

“So… you see it’s not all bad. Father will let you have sweet ice or custard tomorrow and nothing more will be said of it… do you still wish to go?”

She remained stubbornly quiet just sniffling against him and he sighed, and lifted her face up to hers.

“Father will never let me go to Tarth. Not now. So if you go it would be a while before we meet again and I don’t want it to be that way. So… stay okay? If you get sent up here I’ll make sure you won’t be alone.”

Her blue eyes were baleful and defiant. 

“But you will leave me here so you can sneak in with LAdy Cersei.”

She pushed him away and knuckled her eyes. 

“I… I’ll stay here, with you, tonight. Cersei will understand. She knows how lonely it is, up the tower. So.. what do you say? Will you stay?”

She looked at him, and the basket of pie and reluctantly nodded her head. 

Jaime smiled, a huge weight lifted off his chest. 

And as she ate and he prattled, he would have been too young to understand, but if you ask him, now, as he is, twenty years after he first met Brienne of Tarth, he would pinpoint this as the exact moment he knew he never wanted to let her go.


	3. Chapter 3

Summer, 280 AC

On his 14th name day, his father opened the walls of Casterly Rock. Of course, it was also Cersei’s name day and hoardes of suitors eager for her hand came storming through the gates. 

Cersei was to leave after this affair, to go with their father, the Lord Hand to King’s Landing. He hopes to marry her off to young Prince Viserys, as he understood it. 

He won’t of course let it. Cersei was his, and he was hers. The Warrior and the Maiden. 

And he was to be lord of the Rock. She deserved to be by his side. If the king married his own sister… so could he.

For his day, his father announces a tourney, the winner of which granted a horse for a boon. 

The gelding was white as the winter the Starks always said were coming. And beautiful. He wanted it for himself, and of course he had no doubt he would win this tourney. 

“No, Brienne, you are not joining and that is final.”

“But Lord Tywin-”

He smiles at the anger in her voice. She was not afraid of his lord father, and in many many ways, he truly believes that he was fond of her. Fonder of her than any of his children combined. 

It was a fact that annoyed Cersei to no end, as his father would rather drill Brienne on military tactics than spend time with her. 

She was their third, often going with them when Tywin took him around Casterly Rock to teach them how to run it. 

She’s made everything fun these past four years. He would not know what to do without her, and greatly resents the two months in the summer where she is called back to Evenfall Hall, to pay respects to her liege lords the Baratheons and learn the ways of her tiny island. 

In those two months, he is called to court, and is greatly miserable without having his wench there. 

Of course, Cersei keeps him occupied and as they grow she’s become bolder and bolder, touching him, here and there, the risk of getting caught her drug. 

But with Brienne just back from her journey to Tarth, he hasn’t seen much of his sister, intent on catching up with Brienne and just what she was up to in Tarth and Storm’s End. 

He just spent a horrible summer at court with the Targaryens, Robert Baratheon and the broody group of Starks. He did catch up to Brynden Tully and managed to get a favor from him after he told him of Brienne. 

He wanted to give it to her, and so began their catch up of how they did in the summer they were apart, and he’s never really had time to seek Cersei. 

“No, Brienne. Your father has sent the Conningtons here for me to betroth you to their house in his stead. How do you think they would feel to get a daughter in law in breeches, wearing armor and fighting in a tourney?”

“You trained me for this!”

“Yes because I never thought your father would ask you to wed! I trained you to be Evenstar of Evenfall Hall. And your duty to your house comes before your dreams of valor and being a knight. Do as I say child, and ask your septa to put you in a dress.”

Betroth? Connington? What did he mean?

He walked up to his father who was coming out of his study and as soon as Tywin caught sight of him, the unease on his face deepened. 

“Jaime-”

“What do you mean betroth?”

Tywin sighs and places a hand on Jaime’s shoulder. 

“Her father wishes her to wed Ronnet Connington, to help her when he is gone and he inherits Tarth. Today.”

His fists clench. They’re selling her off, like she’s meat in a larder. 

“Father Brienne is but nine.”

“Yes. I know. But I am not her father Jaime. I cannot contradict his wishes.”

Brienne walks out of Tywin’s study, her face a stormy when she spots Jaime. Her lips wobble, but long gone was the little girl who used to weep in his arms when she was hurt or scared. 

She’d gotten brave his Brienne. 

“Jaime. I am not allowed to join your tourney.”

He walked away from his father and in a move that had become so natural to him wrapped Brienne in his arms. She was almost as tall as he now, but she folded into him, her hands clutching at his shirt.

“it’s alright. I will win it for you. And you’ll join the next one, when there are no more Conningtons to interfere with us. I won’t let them do this Brienne” He adds the last in a whisper under his breath. 

She says nothing but he feels the almost imperceptible nod of her head and from his perch, watching them, Tywin Lannister smiles. 

—

They placed her in a blue gown, cut too tight at the waist, trying to give her the illusion of a waist, and piled her limp hair in curls on top of her head. 

She looked miserable, sitting beside Cersei who was radiant in a dress of Lannister red, with rubies sparkling in her golden hair. 

Snickers were sent in their way, the Beauty and the Beast, they were called. And Brienne frowned and hunched a little bit more as Cersei looked at her with smug pleasure. 

His grip tightened a little tighter on his tourney sword. If he can smash all their little faces in…

He awaited for him to come, the banner of the Conningtons, waiting for him to enter tourney ground. And when at last they arrived Tywin took Brienne’s hand in his and stood her in front of the welcoming party. 

She was dusty, and the sun burned her skin making her freckles more evident in the sun. 

Ronnet was a fair boy, tall, but not as tall as Brienne was, and he had a meanness to him, in the way he smiled, in the way he audibly laughed when he saw Brienne’s face next to Tywin. 

“Lord Connington, welcome to Casterly Rock.”

The Lord Connington, pudgy of the belly and red of the face, no doubt what his son would look in the future, smiled thinly at the Lord of the Rock. 

“Lord Tywin, great pleasure. My second son, Ronnet Connington.”

Ronnet stepped forward and gave a frivolous bow to his father. Brienne eyed him and squirmed in her shoes. 

There was something bitter that clawed at his gut, and burned in his mouth. 

Everything he saw was in a red haze, and there was a need in him, such a need, to punch the teeth out of Ronnet Connington’s mouth, so he can never leer and smile at his Brienne like that again. 

“Ah yes, young Ronnet, may I present the Lady Brienne of Tarth, heir to Evenfall Hall, and my only ward.”

Brienne stepped forward and bobbed a curtsy, which caused her to lose balance and topple before righting herself. 

She flushed from the embarassment coloring her already burnt skin an ugly shade of puce and she cleared her throat. 

“Welcome, Master Connington.”

Ronnet smiled at her again, that same smug smile he would so dearly want to wipe out of his face, and pulled a single red rose from his pockets.

He approached Brienne, her eyes wide with apprehension, steadfast on the flower, a symbol of beauty and love… and he let it fall to the floor. 

“Forgive me my lady, this is the only thing I can give to you for your… beauty.”

Brienne’s mouth fell at the disgrace and Ronnet turned back on her, his brothers chuckling all this while and he saw her clench her fists and bite her lips and her eyes watered… he knew those eyes well. But she blinked the tears away, because she won’t let anyone see her cry. Tywin wrapped an arm around her, and lead her away, a sour look on his face. 

Snickers erupted from the stadium, and his sister gave a mean laugh of her own, and he couldn’t take it, his hands gripped his sword too tight and he was vibrating with anger, and he wasn’t aware he had taken three angry storms before the heavy hand of his sword master clamped around his shoulder. 

“Now is not the time boy. You’ll show him. In here.”

And he stared at Ronnet Connington, laughing his way as Brienne ducked her head and pretended not to hear the whispers and the feel the points and stares. 

Oh yes. He’ll show him.

—

Jaime fought like a mad man. His golden hair was drenched in sweat, but there was a lethality in his eyes, a fluidity in his movements. He was always fast, he was always agile, and he was so very strong, but there was vengeance in his movements today. He fell most of his companions with three hits before they yielded, and still he did not tire. 

His eyes… something was wrong. She knew all the moods of it, the tide and ebb and flow of it. 

And there was anger in them now. In the way they turned a green-gray, like a storm brewing over a see, and the way he kept his face passive, as if this was nothing to him, and she puzzled at his mood on his name day, wondering if any man dared approach Cersei, when at last, he reached his final battle. With Ronnet Connington, and smiled. 

And in that moment he looked every bit the feral lion of the rock that he was nicknamed to be and she feared. 

Ronnet Connington will not survive this one. 

“Jaime-”

But Tywin held her down. 

“We are lions of the rock child. We do not let ourselves care about the opinions of sheep.”

She bit her tongue but she did not like where this was going. 

Jaime swung recklessly, too fast, too mean, to strong. 

He forgot his foot work and just rained blow, after blow, after blow to Ron Connington.

“What the fuck is this Lannister?” Ronnet asked as he lifted his shield trying to deflect Jaime’s blows. 

“What? I’m just showing you a welcome, Connington.”

Ronnet parried his attack and tried to kick Jaime into the ground. 

Jaime was faster, he took Ronnet’s momentum and tugged at his swinging leg, sending Ronnet crashing into the ground. 

He points his sword at Connington’s throat.

“Yield.”

Connington said nothing.

“I said. Yield.”

There was menace and danger, and a coldness to the tone, and she felt fear for Ronnet herself. She knew these moods. Only saw this once or twice. Jaime was deadly in this mood. 

“I yield!”

Jaime lifted his sword and turned his back on Ronnet, removing his helm, as cheers erupted from the stands for his victory. 

“Fuck’s sake Lannister, if I knew you wanted the hairy freak for yourself I would have-”

But he never got to finish that sentence, because Jaime’s fist plowed into his face, and the sickening crunch told Brienne he broke his nose, and dislodged a few teeth. 

“You are speaking of a highborn lady. Call her by her name. Call her Lady Brienne.”

“Brienne then, if you please. Brienne the Beauty.”

Jaime’s face hardened and he made a move to kick Ronnet and she broke free of Tywin’s grasp. 

“Jaime!”

Her voice cut through the sudden thickness, and Jaime turned to her, his eyes still murderous, and ignoring Tywin’s grip on her, she jumped from the stands, striding across the tourney ground, eyes fixed and set on Jaime.

“You’ve got dirt on your dress.”

“Dirt on- what does that matter, walk away now, Jaime. Now before you start a war with Connington.”

She hissed in his ear and grabbed at his hand, intent on tugging him away, but he gripped her and stayed her. His green eyes still fiery and the hand he had on her starting to hurt. 

“Lions don’t cower Brienne.”

From the side he saw the gelding being led to him, and he took one look at Connington and kept Brienne firmly at his side. 

“I stand before you as champion today, only because one of our best was not allowed to fight. That was because she was to welcome… a guest, who did not deserve her welcome. So I offer this victory to Lady Brienne of Tarth.”

He took her hand and dragged her to the gelding and took the reigns from the stable master and handed them to her.

“Your horse my lady, from now and always.”

“Jaime…”

Words stuck in her throat, how does she thank him for saving her yet again?

How does she say it?

She’s never been good with words and so, ignoring all propriety, she leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek before smarty hopping on her gelding sans saddle and galloping into the fray. 

Tywin watches his son stand shocked still, with a big beaming smile on his face. 

Yes.

Getting Selwyn to agree to match Brienne with Connington had been the right move. 

From beside him Joanna gripped his hand, and equally smug smile on her face. 

They knew their son very well, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Summer, 277 AC 

Cersei never really minded… the Creature. 

She was too tall, too freckly, and too ugly for her to mind. 

She was the Light of the West, her mother’s pride, and so she never minded the creature that came to them because her father thought it could distract Jaime from her. 

They who shared a womb, they who were halves of a whole, they were always meant to be, Jaime and her. 

And no ugly creature could come between them,

When she picked up a sword and was allowed to train with Jaime, she had to admit that stung. 

She was never allowed into the training hall. That was not a woman’s place, and the Rock was Jaime’s to inherit. 

But she had her own Rock. Smaller, insignificant, but still hers. 

And so she licked her wounds for a while, but her septa was right. The creature can wield a sword all she wanted, she will never be good at the games men play. Whilst she, she can learn to play what women should and be queen of it. 

Someday she will be queen and Jaime with her when she does. 

The creature matters not she kept telling herself as she watched Jaime smile, in an unguarded way he has not smiled since Tyrion was born and he loved it while she despised it. 

The creature is just a new shiny toy, and once her shine was gone Jaime would come running back to her. 

So that night she tried. It was so simple really, so easy. It’s barely a year since she came, and her rooms were moved next to Jaime’s. Easier to teach her, her lord father said, easier for her to train with Jaime. But she knew it was just a ploy to get her to not come to Jaime’s room. 

A ploy to make sure someone will hear if Jaime tries to come to hers. 

But the little cretin knows of their games, and she’s far too in love with Jaime to say anything.

Oh the girl is six yes, but she knows adoration and love when she sees it. 

Her chance came one night, when the creature was forced to sit with her and her septa doing embroidery and mastering court decorum. She was good with a sword she will give her that, but she was not graceful outside of a tourney hall. 

She rose and walked over to the sulking girl. 

“Here, do it like this.”

She executes a perfect curtsey and the creature follows her every move, a furrow appearing on her brow. 

“I am doing it, like that.”

“No, you hold your hips too stiff, here, let me…”

She reached over to the creature and pretended to trip over the hem of her dress, and pushed the creature, whose legs were still crossed over in an awkward curtsey into the sawing basket of her septa.

The basket containing the needles cracked and there was a second when Brienne was still, not knowing what happened before she lifted her hand and saw blood, there on her arm was a long slash from a knitting needle that she landed upon, and hurt began to register, and with it tears.

—

He heard the septa’s cry before Brienne’s own anguished one. He was late returning with his lord father examining the new mine and they were just returning for supper. Before he even knew it he was running down the halls of Casterly Rock, his father at his heels before slamming into the nursemaid’s room.

The first thing he saw was her eyes, swimming in tears as she whimpered, pain etched on her face and next he saw the blood, on her hands, on her arm, that Septa Maellean was trying to stem with cloth, on the dress the septa forced her into and his world tilted. Blood. She was bleeding. 

“Jaime-”

He pushes Cersei aside, not even seeing her, not really, his eyes all for his little friend, who in the year that was here, had been his closest. 

“Well-”

He tried to make his voice light. 

“They always say your greatest enemy will give you your first blood. The sewing had always been yours.”

She glares at him, but she wipes at her tears and firms her lips. 

“This is not my first battle.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I am not!”

He smiles at her petulance and crouches beside her. 

“I know it hurts.”

She shakes her head and he takes her hand. 

“It’s alright. All warriors carry battle scars.”

“You don’t.”

She says it so bitterly that he smooths the loose tendrils of hair that now fluttered across her face. 

“One day I’ll get one to match.”

He looks at her wound again, still bleeding despite the layers of cloth her septa wrapped around it. 

His father came in through the door, a little out of breath. Took one look at the scene and glared at the septa. “I shall deal with you later. Come, Lady Tarth. Let’s get you to a maester.”

His father scooped up Brienne into his arms and she sniffled. 

“Apologies Septa.” She murmured.

“It isn’t your fault my lady.” Who wrung her hands together as she watched the lord carry his injured ward away.

—

Brienne caught a fever that night. From the exhaustion, and maybe a bit of infection, but they were not worried. Still he stood vigil by her bed, as the maester gave her milk of the poppy so he can stitch together her skin. 

“Jaime it is time to go.”

“I’ll stay.”

“I will stay with her. It is not proper for a lordling to be in her lady’s room. I will watch over her for you.”

His mother pressed a kiss to his brow, and patted his hand. 

“I will keep Lady Brienne safe.”

“She… she’s afraid of the dark.”

Joanna smiles and nods her head.

“She doesn’t like the windows closed, even when it’s cold. She likes to hear the sea.”

“I shall keep it open for her then.”

“She will be alright, won’t she mother?”

“Yes, darling boy. It’s just a fever, only that.”

He rose from his perch on the seat beside her bed, but before he walked away he picked up her hand. And held fast.

“You better come to train tomorrow little wench, or I shall be very angry indeed.”

And then in a move he’s never done in his entire life, he pressed her knuckles to his lips before his lady mother could say anything.

—

Cersei waits for him in the shadows of his chambers. 

She comes up to him and embraces him, a wicked smile on her lips but he pushes her away. 

“Father told me you fell into Brienne.”

“You wish to speak of her? Now? Here? When we could-”

He pushes her angrily away, that she falls on her rump on his bed, and Jaime glowers. Jaime had never been angry at her before. 

“You pushed her and she is harmed. She is a child of six Cersei.”

“Yes, and an ugly one at that.”

“Don’t!”

There was fire in his eyes. Fire she’s never seen before. She’s always been able to placate him, always been able to make sure he does as she wills. 

“You hurt her, and she’s done nothing to you. Hurt her again sister, and I will be sure to pay you back the favor.”

“What does it matter!”

She bursts out. 

How dare he? How dare he be angry at her because of that ugly creature?

“What does it matter that I pushed her, one scar cannot make her any uglier than she already is. Why do you care anyway?”

“I swore to protect her. And protect her I shall. I love you sister, but if you touch her, you will make an enemy of me. And you do not wish to do that.”

He pushed her away and strode out her rooms. 

He’s never defended Tyrion before… then again she’s never harmed him beyond words, for mother would berate her. But that creature, that silly ugly creature…

Hatred burned in her veins. She will pay. 

She will pay for taking her family from her. 

She will not stop until she knows what it means to steal from Cersei Lannister


	5. Chapter 5

287 AC, King’s Landing

Brienne looked out of place in her out of fashion tunic. The capital was all about the silks and the exposure of arms, but after an unfortunate incident with a certain Hyle Hunt his mother decided that Brienne should wear whatever she wanted when she was presented to court. 

It was his first time seeing Cersei again after so long. She left Casterly Rock 2 years ago to come to court and try to get Prince Rhaegar’s attention - something she failed to do as the Prince married Elia Martell. 

She was beautiful as ever, his golden sister in her crimson dress, the Light of the West they called her, and the way her eyes watched him made it known to him that she wanted him as well. 

Come with me. 

Join the King’s Guard and be with me.

That’s what she said. Be a knight and me with me. She offered herself to him tonight. She’d gotten her moon’s blood she said. They can finally be together. 

Except he loved Casterly Rock. Sure he hated the lectures, but he loved the land and the people. And he had a duty to it, and to all the small folk who call Lannisport home. He was Lord Lannister, and he did not want Kevan to take over the Rock - he would dry the mines as soon as he can. 

Brienne said so herself - she envisioned a sustainable model -

And his breath caught it his throat when she walked into the doorway. 

“Lady Brienne of Tarth, daughter of Lord Selwyn Tarth and ward of Lord Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock.”

Her face was scrubbed clean of the muck that she usually bore from training in the grounds and long lectures. It made her eyes shine even brighter and suddenly he was transported to that first moment he saw her some ten years ago on the shores of Lannisport - the moment he realized the ocean was in her eyes. 

She frowned, towering over the other ladies she was presented with but the fine tunic of Essosi linen hugged her curves, made her legs look a mile long, and the gleaming badge of both Lannister Lion and the Sun of Tarth made her look magnificent. 

The sun shining from the arbors played shadows on her face.

In this light she can almost be a beauty. 

In this light she can almost be a knight. 

His trance broke when he felt an elbow against his rib, “Shame you have to live with that. Must be hard for you, with such a freak.”

His vision turned red and he was about to pommel the man when Renly Baratheon clapped a hand around his shoulder and gripped tight. 

“Careful there Ser Kenning. That is a lady of the Stormlands. Your liege lord’s dear friend.”

The man cowered and bowed before Renly and without sayiing anything he marched to Lady Brienne, bowed and offered her a dance. 

There were stars that bloomed in Brienne’s eyes as she placed her hand against Renly’s and there was a deep seated burning in his gut. 

This was his Brienne - since when did she and Renly know each other so well? Since when did he have the right to ask her to dance. 

He wanted to bash his pretty face into his head.

“Ah yes, young Renly. He’s been quite taken with our Brienne. And with rumors in the capital about his… preferences, no lady of a higher house would want to be wed to a third son of the Stormlands. I heard Lord Baratheon made an offer to Lord Selwyn, he’s considering it, when I spoke to him last. You never know, this summer when Brienne returns to court at Storm’s End, we may never see her back again.”

His father casually watched the both of them dance and nodded. “Yes, a fine match for our Brienne.”

“A third son from the Stormlands who will never truly love her?”

“Love is not in the cards for someone like Brienne.”

“And what do you mean by that Father?”

There was danger in his tone and Tywin merely sipped from his goblet. “I mean, that the world is cruel, and even more so to those who are not beautiful. She will learn that, however much you or I try to stop it.”

He looked around and saw the snickers, the points as Brienne danced awkwardly with Renly, and she looked at him with all the love in the world, love that should be returned to her. 

“I’ll stop it.”

He handed his own cup to his father and marched to Renly, and tapped him on the shoulder, taking Brienne away from him and bringing her into his arms. 

There was a startle in her face and question in her eyes but he only pulled her closer. It wasn’t anything they haven’t done before. They shared a bed many times, he had a habit of falling asleep in her chambers and no one dared question it for no one could believe that Jaime Lannister would want to touch someone he thought of as a brother and not a woman. 

And yet today he can feel the tremor in her hands, and smell the hint of an orange in her hair. Tonight her eyes seem bluer than they ever were and he drowns in them. 

“My Brie.”

He touches his knuckles to her cheek and she flushes and she looked so adorable he had to smile. 

“Jaime, what are you doing?”

“Dancing.”

“Yes but you’re supposed to be with Lysa Tully.”

“Fuck Lysa Tully. I want to dance with you. Just you.”

She blushes again but she settles against his chest, resting her cheek on his shoulder, and he himself feels his heart skip a beat, holding her this close. In a way that’s not with swords or wars - it was actually nice. 

“Will you marry Renly?”

She says nothing, and his grip tightens on her back. 

“Do you love him?”

“He’s been kind. He told me that I should not care about the opinions of others.”

“Do you love him, Brienne?” He asks as he pulls away from her so he could look into her eyes. Her eyes never lied. 

“In many ways yes.”

“But not in the important way.”

“Jaime-”

“I’m not a third son Brienne.”

She knows what he means and she shakes her head. 

“No.”

“I will love you more than he does.”

She turns to look back at him, her eyes burning. 

“But not in the important way Jaime.”

She breaks away from him and he chases after her, Cersei’s invitation and the prospect of the King’s Guard long forgotten. That was the night that changed everything.


	6. Chapter 6

278 AC - King’s Landing

When Rhaegar sends him sprawling into the sand again he growls and throws his tourney sword to the side and just lies there, covering his eyes against the sun beating down on him and wishes he culd be anywhere else, somewhere that was not so bloody hot all the time, somewhere it rained a lot - with seas as blue as sapphires. 

“What in the Warrior’s name is up with you?”

Rhaegar asked as he panted and sprawled beside Jaime. 

“Nothing’s the matter with me.”

“You’ve been scowling the moment you got here, you refuse to dance with the ladies panting after you and you’ve been cooped up on this cliff overlooking this water all the time.”

He raises himself to sit and met Rhaegar’s curious violet eyes. 

He hasn’t been himself, truth be told. 

He was irritated all the time, and he did not even know why. 

He had an itch to get out of King’s Landing, to return to Casterly Rock. 

The little wench had not sent him one raven at all since she left. 

His hands clench again and he grumbles. 

When she left she came to his room, clutching her little lion toy his mother had weaved for her, in her hands which she held out to him. 

“Keep Ser Lionheart safe for me, I would not wish for him to get wet or lost at sea.”

His red tufty main was a bit matted and mangled and he scoffed at her toy. 

“Keep it in your room.”

“But he’ll be lonely!”

“Do I even care Brienne?”

She bit her lip, but he noticed the tiny wobble there and she shuffled her big feet and looked straight at the ground. 

“Will you write when I’m in Tarth?”

“I’m busy. I’ll be in King’s Landing, ravens aren’t all that common.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

Then she turned her back and quickly walked down the hall to her room. 

He pulled his hair out and groaned. He would have apologized, he really would, except she was gone that afternoon, with Ser Lionheart tucked safely in her bed. 

He has not heard from her since. She has not bothered to let him know she was in Tarth and if not for Lord Selwyn’s letter he would have thought her lost at sea. He waited day and night for her letter to come, but she never wrote to him. 

Not at all. 

And that made him very very angry indeed. 

“I don’t know Rhaegar, I’m just feeling a little tired.”

“They say you have a goodsister in Casterly Rock.”

He says nothing, and Rhaegar smiles to himself. 

So it is true, the Lion of the Rock and the little Evenstar. 

“They say she’s an unusual creature.”

“How so? Who’s they?”

Rhaegar smiles again at the sudden anger in Jaime’s tone. Interesting. Very interesting. 

“Lyanna. She says she hears from Cat and Lysa that she fights with a sword and Lyanna thinks that’s very good of her and would want to meet her. I think she plans to invite the lady. What was her name again? Brianne”

“Brienne.” Jaime’s swift correction and suddenly eager posture betrayed his casual non-chalance. 

“And will Lyanna do that? Invite her?”

“Well she is a guest at the Baratheon’s it would be such an offense… but she has specifically asked me, and I am but a poor chap, in love with his betrothed. I think I shall invite the young lady.”

“Good then.”

Suddenly Jaime was smiling, and the fog of anger and annoyance that has followed him since the summer has lifted. 

“You know what Rhaegar, I think I fancy another go.”

He picked up his sword and briskly got to his feet and Rhaegar laughed. So Lyanna was right, young Jaime Lannister was in love. 

It would be worth offending Robert Baratheon to see where this would go.


	7. Chapter 7

Summer, 277 AC

Brienne was frowning at her books, a murderous look on her face. 

Her lessons were more like his now, and she spends less and less time with Cersei in her embroidery and her prayers. 

She was learning to hold a sword, and man a forth. 

She was also, poorly learning how to ration grain and pay her people’s wages - something that he himself was not keen on learning. 

He liked to read about the wars, and the battlefields, how they were lost, how they were won, and how he would have chosen if he were in the same situation. 

The art of war enticed him far more than the art of crop rotation ever could. 

And so it was apparently for Brienne. 

Her mother still forced her to wear her lady dresses when they were inside. Breeches were only for sword play, and so today she was in a simple white muslin, with blue moons and suns. 

His mother had learned that Brienne will never be fashionable and so her dress was not styled like Cersei’s, all flowy and wicked that warmed his blood when she wears it for dinner. 

No hers was of soft muslin, not silk and satin, and fitted loosely around the bodice. She looked so young like this, so much younger that he felt bad for her, remembering his own self at her age when all he wanted was to run and play and be a Warrior.

And so remembering he closed his book, the sound of him slamming it alerted her. 

“What are you doing?”

“It’s summer, and it’s a beautiful day. We’re going to the river.”

“We can’t! Lord Tywin told us to finish this by today. He will ask us of it in dinner. I don’t want to not know the answer again.”

She pouted, her thick lip jutting out and the redness of her skin making her freckles stand out more. 

Ah. 

It’s not that she did not know. 

It’s that his father made it a point to ask her things he knows she did not. In the dinner table, before she even got a chance to eat, and so he would deflect it to him, and he, having studied longer, would have some semblance of knowledge. 

It’s not that Brienne was not smart, it’s that she was not trained to be vile and mercenary yet. And he was damned if he’d let her. 

“Nevermind that. It’s summer. And you’ll never know enough by supper. Come. It’s time we took Tyrion for a trip anyway.”

The mention of his little brother was enough to sway her. 

She’s seen the way their father ignores him, the way their mother coddled him, and the way Cersei despises him. 

Every so often he would take Tyrion out, just the two of them, far away into the grounds, playing at a river he found. They pretended to be adventures, knights, fighting dragons and slaying monsters. 

Since Brienne came he was embarassed to say that he sort of… forgot about his little brother. 

And it was time they change that. 

“Alright. For Tyrion then.”

He brings her up to the nursery and before when it was just him, he had to sneak Tyrion carefully out the door when Nanny was away. This time… he had Brienne. 

“I will not lie to nanny. Lying is a horrible thing.”

“Little wench it’s not lying it’s saving Tyrion!”

She hesitates, but she shakes her head. 

“No, nanny will get into trouble if they find out. We have to get her out, and clear the room, to get Tyrion.”

He looks at her for a moment, all of her honor and her oaths, and cursing under his breath rolls his eyes. 

“Fine, the hard way it is. we have to sneak him out the door. Tyrion cannot climb out his window.”

“He can’t. But I can.”

If he was going to be perfectly honest, the moment Brienne scaled down the tower wall with Tyrion strapped to her back with a blanket was the day Jaime knew for sure one day she was going to be the most breathtaking thing Westeros ever had the privelege of seeing.

They play in the rivers, getting all muddy and sweaty. They returned by nightfall and sure enough his father was already there, waiting with a stick and a book.

They were sent to bed without supper, Tyrion locked in with their mother. Nanny eyed them with the stink eye.

But it was all worth it - to see Brienne smile on a sunny day.


End file.
